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Black Ops II’s minimum system requirements have been released by developer Treyarch, confirming the game won’t support Windows XP.
The decision to abandon XP is a result of an upgraded game engine to make use of DirectX 11, meaning you’ll need Vista or later to run Black Ops II.
Minimum requirements:
OS: Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz or AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHz
Memory: 2GB for 32-bit OS or 4GB for 64-bit OS
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512 MB or ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB
PC gamers meeting these requirements should get a good game experience.
“We have tested extensively on a variety of hardware and we are very confident in the performance even at the minimum specs,” explained Treyarch.
Regarding the move to DX11, Treyarch added: “Performance has been a top priority for Black Ops II PC from day one and we have achieved significant improvements. We’ve improved the way the engine handles multiple threads. Additionally, we moved the engine from DX9 to DX11. The DX11 API is leaner than DX9 and requires less CPU time to do the same amount of work. It is important to point out that this benefits the entire range of supported GPUs, not just DX11 hardware.
“We have also added more ‘quality vs performance’ options than ever before so you can customise your experience to either run faster or to satisfy your taste in eye candy.”
Some of the graphical enhancements you’ll get on PC include “enhanced lighting, shadows, antialiasing, bloom, depth of field, ambient occlusion, and other enhanced effects that are still in the works.”
The PC game can also run at higher resolutions and there’s no cap on framerate, unless you want to set one in the game options.
Black Ops II will be released worldwide on November 13.
